series, featuring a former Ohio State and Cleveland Browns quarterback turned investigator, and editor of Columbus Noir. His stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, the 2022 anthology Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, and other magazines and anthologies. Kirkus calls his new crime novel, The End of the Road, "A crackerjack crime yarn chockablock with miscreants and a supersonic pace.”
Welsh-Huggins applied the Page 69 Test to The End of The Road and reported the following:
Page 69 of The End of The Road is the beginning of Chapter 15, narrated from the perspective of J.P., a sheriff’s deputy introduced a few chapters earlier. In the scene, J.P. is eating lunch on a Friday afternoon at the Dutch House Inn in the small (fictional) town of Darbytown, Ohio. He’s feeling a little guilty about being at the restaurant because his wife, June— away for a few days visiting her parents—prepared an enormous sandwich for him that J.P. promptly ignored in favor of dining out. As he considers the weekend ahead, his server—Tina, a distant cousin—arrives at his table and underscores the nature of small-town gossip by immediately asking J.P. about June’s trip.Visit Andrew Welsh-Huggins's website.
A browsing reader who opened my book to page 69 would find herself in media res without a strong sense of the plot. The novel is told from the perspective of three characters—J.P.; a young woman named Penny out to avenge her boyfriend’s shooting; and Pryor, the villain who shot and left the boyfriend for dead before disappearing. Several major developments have taken place before we meet J.P. at the restaurant, including the shooting; Penny’s anguished decision that she must go after Pryor alone, without involving the police; and hints from Pryor about the crime he’s intent on carrying out next. A few more chapters must pass before J.P.’s relationship to any of that becomes clear. That said, page 69 gives the reader some insights into J.P.’s personality and the milieu of the world he lives and works in.
The End of The Road loosely uses the structure of Homer’s Odyssey to tell the story of Penny’s own odyssey in pursuit of justice. The action rotates between her, Pryor, and J.P., with one of my goals being to gradually weave together the three characters’ stories until they are brought together in a climactic finale. Although Penny and Pryor knew each other distantly before the events of the novel begin, neither had any reason to interact with J.P. without the circumstances that ultimately force them to meet. Before that fateful moment, Penny and J.P. both embark on bildungsroman-style travels that will either make or break them. If nothing else, the brief glimpse we get of J.P. on page 69 suggests how his journey is progressing so far.
My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave.
Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins.
The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave.
Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins.
My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
